Overwatch: To Err Is to Engineer
by Megan1289
Summary: Torbjorn must rethink what it means to be an engineer when it comes to dealing with the Last Bastion.


It was situations like this that made Torbjorn regret bringing that damn Bastion to the Watchpoint at all.

Torbjorn _knew _the E-54 model, inside and out. Every nut, every bolt, every sheet of metal that made up its armor system and every wire that snaked its way through its processor. He could build one from scratch, given the time and resources, and he could most certainly tear one apart at a moment's notice.

Yet, this Bastion- this Bastion had him at wit's end.

Torbjorn resisted the urge to chew on his lip as he picked up his tools. Already looking over the wall, he could tell it would take several hours for him to repair all this mess. Bits of sunlight streamed into through the many bullet holes that were scattered across the wall like stars on a clear night.

Thankfully, the holes were all concentrated around a central point- a testament to Bastion's precise targeting system, a system that Torbjorn still employed in his deployable turrets. He picked the lowest hole and began the steady process of patching it. He'd have to get a step ladder to reach the higher ones, but he could do that later.

He'd patched so many bullet holes in his career that the process became routine, especially with the rounds that the E-54 units fired. Sometimes he'd even had to patch while under fire of said Bastions. Right now that was thankfully not the case. This was Watchpoint, which perhaps the safest place on Earth for a former Overwatch operative/part-time vigilante like he was. With rumors of a shadowy figure running around and gunning down all former agents, it was better safe than sorry.

Safe, except for the Bastion unit that roamed on these Watchpoint grounds. The bullet holes he was patching in the wall were an example of that risk.

The Omnic war machine had wandered into one of the many crew breakrooms. It apparently was interacting with some of the newer members of Overwatch when, without warning, the toaster went off.

A damn toaster. And the result of that was the obliteration of several military-grade cabinets, and dozens of coin-sized holes in a perfectly good wall. Oh, and the complete neutralization of an enemy toaster, apparently.

Almost immediately after the incident happened, all remaining toasters in the Watchpoint had been collected and donated to charity (on the insistence of the climate scientist, Mei). The second thing that had happened after was that Bastion was now contained within Torbjorn's workshop until further notice.

Torbjorn just thanked his lucky stars that no one was caught in the crossfire. Had someone been actually injured in this incident, and. . .

Well, that would be one more person's blood on his hands. There was already enough blood spilled to last lifetimes, but he still felt every single drop. Sometimes he didn't want to get up in the morning because of it. However, the obligation to end the danger he created drove him on.

Torbjorn paused his work and looked up at the rest of the wall. The hole he was working on was nearly patched. Dozens and dozens more still remained.

He pushed himself away from the wall and threw the tool he was holding. It hit the ground without a sound, the noise being drowned out by the sound of wind coming into the room from the outside.

These holes could wait. Athena could simply cut this room off from the air conditioning system until he got around to fixing this, or perhaps he could enlist Brigitte's help, though his daughter was busy enough as it was with her strict training regime. It didn't matter. It was time to confront the source of this problem head on. He didn't bother picking up the tools he had brought with him, for he had extras back in his workshop.

He walked out of the room then closed the door, leaving the outside breeze behind him. Without looking, he tapped the small door panel to let Athena know his intentions. He took off down the hallways of the Watchpoint. He arrived outside of his workshop.

The first thing he saw when he opened the door was the placid blue optic of Bastion. This nearly caused him to flinch, but he got over his terror quickly. He wasn't surprised by the Omnic's eagerness anymore.

Torbjorn was quick to enter, shutting the door behind himself before Bastion could get any ideas. It waved at him as he turned around again. He simply looked into its optic. It looked back, then cocked its head. He didn't respond. He looked away and walked straight over to his desk.

The Omnic followed him, of course, over to the table and upon arrival began chirping. Torbjorn recognized the chirp- he had built the vocal processor, and he was one of the programmers of the language that the Bastions used to communicate between each other in a scenario where internal radio transmissions were being hacked. The chirp was an inquisitive one, one intended to ask other units their status and objectives.

Irritated, he responded. "I'm not doing anything. Not yet."

Bastion whirred quietly. The first noise was an acknowledgement code, but the following tones were garbled in a way that he couldn't recognize. The E-54 units involved in the Crisis spoke extremely crisp, with only a few tones, most being higher-pitched than the ordinary human could hear. But Bastion's voice box had been subject by thirty years of neglect, and no doubt the system was riddled with bugs. At least, that was Torbjorn's hypothesis. He couldn't actually examine the Omnic's processor without experiencing. . . issues.

Issues like what happened with the toaster.

Those issues were what he was here to work on. It was Morrison's direct orders to him since yesterday's incident. The look in the commander's eyes told him all he needed to know about how urgent this was. Remembering that, he felt guilty that he had tried to put it off at all.

But now, coming back to his desk in his workshop, he was stuck on the exact same problem that he had left on. Also, now the problem that he had to solve was awake and looking over his shoulder.

Another inquisitive chirp came from behind him. He then felt Bastion's cold hand tap his shoulder. Then more noises. If Torbjorn was a more sentimental type, he may have thought that the noises sounded concerned.

"Yes, I'm fine," he responded, though not as angry-sounding as he intended He strengthened his tone. "I'm just thinking. Leave me alone."

After a few seconds of silence, he heard a loud thud behind him. He whipped around in his seat to see Bastion on the floor. . . sitting. Torbjorn blinked his eyes. Yes, the Omnic was sitting, with its legs out in front of it, leaning back on its hand and its gun. Torbjorn almost laughed in confusion. It would have great difficulty getting up out of it; he wasn't even sure it could get up without help. It stared at him, then began to look around as if distracted. He turned back around in his chair.

Torbjorn _knew_ the E-54 model. He knew every nut, every bolt, every plate, every wire. And with his knowledge, he was absolutely _certain_ that no Bastion would ever force itself to the floor like _that_.

Yet the Bastion right behind him proved otherwise.

The Omnic must have picked the gesture up from somewhere. Perhaps Tracer. Maybe Lucio. But either way, someone had taught it to defy all logic and slam the torso of its chassis into the ground. This teachability was completely new and made no sense. Bastions could learn, of course- how else would they be so effective in combat? -but never in such a way that defied their fundamental logic programs; Logic programs that went against such things like voluntarily leaving oneself vulnerable on the ground. Or. . . target analysis programs that knew that toasters were not a threat.

It was almost as if most Bastion's basic programming had been erased, but that wasn't true. All of its combat protocols were perfectly intact: but it seemed to engage and disengage its protocols at will-

Torbjorn froze, before trying to banish the thought from his mind. No. Bastion didn't have a will. Its operating program was simply bugged in a way he hadn't figured out yet.

All of this would be much simpler if he could just run diagnostics on Bastion's processor, or better yet, simply dissect the thing. But every time he'd tried to analyse it, Bastion had been- no, its programming had been less than cooperative, threatening to erase the entire system if he dug too deep. This protocol also was averse to any attempt at interfering with Bastion's basic weapons systems. That meant that he couldn't disarm the thing without triggering its basic defense protocols. That was a fact that he didn't remember until he was getting shot at. He'd already patched the bullet holes in this workshop weeks ago. He hadn't tried again since.

All the answers he needed were behind doors that he himself had locked when he had first designed the E-54. All this trouble was the result of a basic protocol protecting the units from being hacked or hijacked by an outside force. That was one of the first protocols that he had written before the Crisis. That fact made him want to slam his fist into the table and scream.

Torbjorn didn't like feeling helpless. He never thought he could be- he could always build his way out. Build a better tool, better weapon, better armor. Come up with a solution the world had never seen before. Yet he was trapped in a struggle against his own design.

He glanced back at Bastion. The Omnic was still sitting in the same ridiculous position, gently tapping its fingers against the ground in a made-up rhythm.

This. . . peacefulness wasn't natural to the E-54 model. That fact was what made Torbjorn decide to preserve this Bastion, rather than destroy it, when it appeared back in the forests of his home country. Something within the Omnic stirred something deep within him. An ancient idea, an innocent one, back before Overwatch, before the Crisis, before the Ironclad, even. It was an idea of making the world a better place. Bastions were the design through which he would do so.

After all the pain and suffering caused by his design in the Crisis, to see a Bastion that had shed its warlike features gave him _hope_. Hope that the damage he had caused could be reversed. Hope that Omnics could one day be remembered as an advancement for humanity, rather than a cause for mass pain and suffering. That is why he took Bastion back with him to his workshop. That is why he took Bastion here, to the Watchpoint. Overwatch was about bringing extraordinary people and ideas together, and this was truly an idea worthy of the cause: To find a way to demilitarize the rest of the Omnics programs by using this Bastion as the benchmark.

Torbjorn was the world's leading expert when it came to his own design, but this Bastion was _different_. While some of the old protocols still remained, something about this Omnic was fundamentally different than its cousins that fought in the Crisis. Different than, perhaps, how he had originally designed. Maybe, with this problem, he needed to start from the ground up, instead of basing everything on how he _thought_ the E-54 model functioned.

Torbjorn got up out of his chair, and stood to face Bastion. It chirped at his attention, and looked back at him.

He came over around to its side. "I'm going to figure you out."

Bastion cocked its head and hummed softly. It was listening.

"There's a reason you're here," he put his hand on its shoulder.

A series of warm tones came from the Omnic, and it nodded slowly. They had no meaning, not that Torbjorn could tell, but he understood exactly what it was communicating.

He removed his hand from its shoulder and looked away, and laughed. "I'm not sure why I'm saying this to you, of course. You're just a bucket of bolts. But-"

He heard a questioning chirp from the Omnic, but he didn't respond. He turned around and ran to his desk. He pulled out several drawers before finding one and pulling out an old-fashioned notebook and pencil.

He scribbled hastily. "First, we're going to figure out just what sets off those nasty combat protocols of yours. . ."


End file.
